


Fox Mulder's Final Wish

by nowwhateinstein



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Episode: s07e21 Je Souhaite, F/M, Missing Scene, Season/Series 07, Season/Series 08, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6889402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowwhateinstein/pseuds/nowwhateinstein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Don't you want to save yourself?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fox Mulder's Final Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Missing Scene from Je Souhaite. Spoilers for end of Season 7 through beginning of Season 8. Inspired by @all-these-ghosts musings on Mulder being terminally ill during Season 7 (as revealed in Within).

“My formula for human greatness is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not in the future, not in the past, not for all eternity. Not only to endure what is necessary, still less to conceal it... but to love it.” - Friedrich Nietzsche 

++++

My eyes follow Scully as she grabs her jacket and leaves the office. Jenn's voice sounds behind me as soon as she's gone.

“She feels the same way about you, too, you know.”

Jenn says it so casually, as if we were neighbors discussing the weather: They say it’ll rain tomorrow, and oh, by the way, Dana Scully loves you.

I suppose five hundred years of granting wishes has made her an expert in reading human desires - even the ones that are never spoken aloud. Still, her acuity catches me off guard; I look up at her from my desk, unable to hide my surprise. 

“Does she know?” I ask, fearful of the answer.

Somehow, she’s able to intuit the object of my question immediately. “About your condition?” She pauses, as if listening to something far away, then: “No. She doesn’t know.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. I can’t bring myself to tell Scully about my diagnosis. She already has so much weighing on her mind.

“I could do it, you know,” she says. “I could make it go away, as your final wish.”

Make it go away. The paralyzing headaches that increasingly plague my waking hours. The gut-churning sensation I get every time I look at Scully and am reminded that my days with her are numbered. The despair I feel when I hold her in my arms after making love. The knowledge that I’m a dead man walking. To be able to wish it all away feels overwhelming, intoxicating.

“Or, since you’re so bent on being ‘altruistic,’ I could give her what she so desperately wants… what you tried - and were unable to give her.”

I close my eyes and try to swallow the lump that has suddenly formed in my throat. Jenn pulls no punches when it comes to pointing out options. Six months of trying, and Scully remains barren. I wonder if Jenn is this scathing with her other keepers. 

Once again, she seems to read my mind. “My last master was too stupid to realize that what he really needed was a new set of working legs - not bringing his moronic, invisible brother back from the dead. He didn’t figure it out until it was too late. You, however, seem to have come to your senses after your fiasco of a first wish. I don’t have to be a jinni to see that you love her, and would do anything to see her happy. Life is full of choices, of crossroads. This is yours.”

If I can give back to Scully what’s been so violently taken from her, I will do so unhesitatingly. I’m the reason she’s barren. I’m the reason she nearly lost her life to cancer. My illness is a consequence of my search to uncover the truth; if it results in my death, I’m ready for it. 

Something does make me hesitate, though: Scully’s voice echoing through my head. 'Maybe that’s the whole point of our lives here - to work to make the world a better, happier place. Maybe it’s a process that one man shouldn’t try to circumvent with a single wish.'

Is this wish really mine to make? I wonder. Am I playing God, opposite to the men who took Scully and robbed her of the chance to give life? I certainly lack God’s supposed omniscience; I inadvertently wished the entire human race out of existence this morning, after all. The unintended repercussions may be beyond my ability to foresee, but given how badly things ended for Jenn’s previous masters, it’s now clear to me that there will never be a fool-proof wish. Still, to give Scully the one thing she desires, to fill that void with the life she’s always wanted… 

Jenn interrupts my musings. “Are you ready?” 

I stand up to face her. “Yeah, I’m ready,” I say. I take a deep breath. “I wish for your release.”

She smirks. “You know how many people have promised to use their final wish to set me free, only to change their minds at the last minute? Don’t you want to save yourself? Or give your partner a child?”

“Of course I do. But not like this. These wishes aren’t gifts - they’re curses. That’s what they’ve always been. It’s my wish to put an end to it. For your sake, and for all of ours.”

Jenn’s smirk transforms into genuine smile. “You’re the first person in five hundred years who’s managed to catch on.” She pauses. “Is that your final wish?”

“It is.”

“Done.”

At first, it appears that nothing’s changed. Jenn’s still standing there, leaning against the bookcase, looking at me. Then I realize that the jewel on the corner of her eye is gone. 

“Welcome back to the human race,” I say.

“Finally.” Her sarcasm is tempered by a sigh of relief.

I pull out my wallet and hand her all the cash in it. “Something to get you started,” I say. “Go live your life, moment by moment.”

“As long as you do the same.” She fixes me with a pointed look. “Make the most of the time you have left.”

I nod. I already have an idea of how I’d like to spend my final days - and with whom. 

Jenn gives me a knowing wink before she disappears down the hall.


End file.
